Lonely Fans
2022 · 20m · Switzerland
Directed by David Oesch
Genres: comedy, fantasy, romance
Tones: humorous, tender, whimsical
Laurent, a wind turbine mechanic with an unusual erotic fixation on fans, is sent to repair a sabotaged turbine in the remote Swiss Jura and ends up staying at the hotel of Anaïs, who fiercely opposes the turbines — a quixotic romance between a man in love with wind and a woman fighting it.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A Swiss short where the central love triangle is Man, Woman, and Wind Turbine is exactly the kind of premise that short film as a form was invented to protect — no studio would greenlight a man who is sexually and romantically devoted to rotational machinery.
A wind-turbine mechanic erotically attached to fans, played with complete sincerity against an anti-turbine hotelier — this is the kind of gonzo fable where Švankmajer and early Lanthimos comparisons are doing actual structural work, not name-dropping. 20 minutes of sustained tonal control is the bet.
Twenty minutes of a wind turbine mechanic's literal erotic attachment to fans played as quixotic romance — Kacey Mottet Klein lends real-actor weight to a totally gonzo conceit. The earnestness is the gamble and probably the payoff.
Festivals
- Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2022